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on the homefront. welcome to washington. >> guest: thank you so much for being here to talk with me about it. so, tell me a bit about your book. >> guest: i never intended to write a book. my oldest son headed off to the naval academy and at that time there were parents to communicate with each other and engage and just kind of connect so i began posting on that list and everything changed. my son had gone to a peacetime navy and within a few short hours everything changed. and so i began to write more.

ultimately i was asked to become a moderator and that started with me encouraging and supporting the navy academy parents through the time i have two more had two more children who decided to apply and attend the naval academy and so as the years went by not only did i have them i had that i have been on active duty and so they kept saying you need to write this all down in the book and as our life continued in its twists and turns, my husband after his airline declared bankruptcy he worked for an airline in afghanistan. i followed him and i talked for a year in afghanistan so i had a perspective of being a mom who have children deployed to

afghanistan and now i was there at the same time our youngest son decided to join the military not through and not through the academy but through the rotc and now i have four children all serving in the war zone and when i came back people kept saying you need to write this down in first i thought i will write it down for my family. you need to do more with this and he contacted the publisher and the result. >> they are all different branches of the service. how did that go about? >> guest: there are a limited number to cross the commission.

primarily she wanted to try to fly and have a medical condition that was precluded from doing that in the navy that the air force had different standards. she had done in exchange at the air force academy and was also very interested in states. it was a total fluke that we ended up in every branch that was never intentional, but it kind of fits with each of their passions and what they wanted to do in the active duty military service. >> host: who do you feel that your audience is for the buck? >> guest: i speak for the moms and dads. i said i know you care just as deeply but my first audience is

the moms. they know they are not alone and they can be encouraged and inspired and we could all share information. in my website but i am trying to do is build a community where moms can be supported and find information because we don't get family readiness briefings or get out support that comes from the traditional military so that is my first audience. my second audience is the greater community. i wad you to understand what this is like and i want you to realize it isn't the same as sending your children off to college. there are a lot of differences. i want you to understand there are people around you carrying a heavier burden than it may appear in its what we do and we do is gladly because we love our country that it still is a heavy burden. so, i have to audience as i

hoped. >> host: you grew up in a military family. your father served in the army and went to vietnam. you write a little bit about your experience as a military child with your father deploying. the talk about that event. >> guest: i'm the oldest of seven. i went to 12 different schools and my father was in the quarter. he met my mother when she was in the army as well. so, i joke that my first military duty was getting my mother and on a honorable those charged -- honorable discharge. he was an advisor and i was 8-years-old and i really didn't have a concept of what that meant except halfway through when the military took over the government and when we started sending in the troops and so things changed from then on.

it was very difficult. should the troops be thanked yes everybody needs to be thanked because i grew up where i had to defend my father. even in the rotc on the campus of arizona state university, i was harassed, i was catcalls and spit out when i would wear my uniform. i don't ever want to go back to those days and feeling like you needed to apologize and defend your parents because someone was calling them a bd killer ebd killer and that happened to me. so now i look at the way the current generation are being valued and it's heartwarming. i have six younger brothers and sisters, some of them struggled

with the constant moving and it was a very difficult time. on the other hand there is no place i feel more at home than on the base or the post. there was connection between the families that were so tight because no matter where we were we had each other to. we had our siblings and my mom. i treasure of the people i met because you don't have to waste time trying to fit in. everybody is ready to make a friend because we were also transient. so that part of military life continues to be very special to me. >> i find it interesting that you grew up in that environment and married somebody in the air force and then you move to a small town in ohio, a farm in

ohio and the whole concept of living one face for a long period of time to me is frightening. so you're going to raise your children for one place most of their entire childhood. talk about the transition. >> i thought that's what i wanted to have stuff play a lot and not have to pack one box of special things every time we moved. and there is a part of that that is very comforting. i know who my mechanic is that i get in trouble all the time because i don't wave when people drive by. when you live in a place you are not expected to know anybody you're not looking good when you are in small-town america, everybody knows everybody but the joke is don't come into my house in the dark because i do

this moving and i do miss being in new places and so one of the places i would cope if they would move furniture and i don't just mean moving the couch in a different corner i might be moving the bedroom around so i have spent for coming late at with come in late at night and wouldn't even know which way to go to. there are parts of it that are just wonderful and parts of it i do feel like that dandelion is the symbol for for crack and i'm ready to move on and be in a new environment. >> host: hell did that experience influenced your children to go into the service if it did and you know, tell me a little bit about what you thought when your first son

talked about joining the navy. >> guest: . we had my dad we were fortunate because my husband flew for an airline. they heard the family stories. we would come to dc and watch for the memorial. we did that probably for eight years and when the service songs but they able to stand up for bad. and they knew this was something to be valued so they were exposed to that. he felt like i was preparation for life if you can follow

through and be responsible and work hard to endure the comfort of their isn't a lot that can be thrown at you. so they learned how to learn how to be the animals before they were allowed to eat. so when he spent his first summer at the naval academy one of the first letters we got was this is better than being at home bailing hay so we thought we succeeded. we knew from the time he was a little boy he wanted to keep. he cuba to be top gun. my husband was like wait a minute she's going to go in the air force. as they got older they visited the academies and looked at

different options. he knew he wanted to be a military pilot so when he was except that i was excited and proud of him because he was the beginning of history and because there's a lot more to happen before he would get his wings. and it wasn't until that very first day even though i'd grown up in the military and i understood and respected it as an institution that first day all of a sudden it hit me that this was going to be totally different than any other military family experience that i had up until that point. >> host: and up until that point had you been involved i know we now have social media we have a lot. had you already been contacting naval academy parents until that

point and were you aware of this group that is out there? >> guest: we had been surveying and you could participate. and the kind of questions to ask or what do they need to bring and what color ten issues do they need. all of that menu shut up when you're a peer mentor him on you feel like you are in control because you are making sure you have everything you need and that is part of the reality of wednesday that door there is nothing else i can do that is going to prepare them and now it's up to them into that for me was difficult because i wanted

to do everything i could. they spoke on the passion and ability to survive. and that was an amazing piece out of the moment. >> host: how much of a hands-on parents were you prior? what would you describe yourself as a helicopter mom? guest co. we had a lot of things to have them be independent and help them for. we didn't run interference with them when they have difficulty. it was like okay you signed up for this. you are not quitting the team. you need to show the coach what

you can do. but anything that they were excited or passionate about why he was there for them. they were there for all the different sports, dated community theater. katrina decided when she was 13 she wanted to climb to mount everest and found an expedition. i was that kind of supportive if that's what you want to do like to go for it but i didn't fight battles for them. it may improve the lot for life.

that's the perception when i think of the helicopter they are trying to smooth the way instead of letting people fight their battles because that's how i knew and that's how i still know that they are okay because i know they can fight whatever obstacle comes in their path i know they have the internal skills to handle it. do i sometimes feel like i'm standing on the sidelines biting my fingernails cheering them on? of course. but i need to have confidence that they are prepared for what is in front of them and so that was mine and my husband's goal is creating an environment where independent and hard work is going to pay off and sometimes it wasn't fair. sometimes things happen where i really wanted to get more involved but i held myself back

because that wasn't going to help them. so now what i told a fellow navy academy parents is a helicopter parent you create a. when i know what to expect and i can relax and i don't need to be hovering. i say the same thing to micron children. if you tell me that you're okay then i don't need to cover and now it boils down to sometimes it is once every two months especially when they are deployed. >> now i know it's okay that i

back off. it's how to navigate this world and culture that is a military. and you have a background being in the military family you probably encountered people that think it is completely a foreign country. talk about the culture that is the military family and how hard it is to convey to brand-new parents and his trust and listed or linked to went to the naval academy or west point. how do you help them navigate the new world of? >> guest: we have a facebook page where i also do the series

that's pretty much basic truth. in the military the rules are rules they are not made to be broken. for example i grew up on the walking on sidewalks, never walking on the grass. that is just second nature to me. so the first thing is to explain the concept of military order and discipline. whether you think it is a stupid rule or not or whether you want to express your individuality there is a reason we need uniformity. there's a reason why we need a chain of command and the reason why we need to follow follow the first order and discipline in every military unit in the world has to have that basis. so explaining to parents it doesn't matter they still need

to do what they say. it is modeled later on in a time of war or difficult time they need to be able to count on people doing what they are supposed to do when they are told to do it. it's just basic truth. people who didn't go up in the military many times don't have the confidence in the institution that i have growing up in it. when you look back you see the method and all the mad us. why should people be trained to behave this way because there are times when it's critical they need to follow procedure. they have procedures they have to follow in the event of emergency. it's the same thing for many in

the military of a nuclear weapon or they have been been a woman and a command that they are responsible for. there is a reason why you need to follow the rules and procedures and so when they are in a training environment what are they going to be doing three years, four years, ten years from now if they are training to become officers they are going to be responsible for other people potentially in life and death situations. it is important for them to be pushed to their limit to be -- to know they can perform even the most difficult circumstances. so that's why they screen and do these things that seem ridiculous, because they need to know that they can be unemotional in that time when most people were knocked down.

and so as we go through these different phases, then we get to the hardest one of all which is you have absolute free no control over anything from now on. you can counsel and give advice but if you have a medical problem the military is going to take care of it and if they have a leadership problem they need to care to the chain of command to take care of the situation that they are dealing with and that is probably the most difficult part of all of it is that you can't call the counselor. in the very beginning the first time i went through it was a shock. now i am relieved that i don't

have that to worry about. i have other things to worry about but for many parents when their son or daughter hits a bump in the road and they get a phone call or text message that says this guy is doing this and it's like when they went on a bus to the first time or do they want to do you want to get in there and kick it. that's one of the hardest parts but it also coincides where the nest is starting to empty and we start to redefine who we are. our role as mother changes. there is no what to expect when you're expecting for the

parenting and adult child so that's where the mother-in-law jokes come from. how do we navigate this new world especially when we have children that are fiercely independent for years. not in the attorney level but biologically. >> host: let's talk about the experience of having your troops and children go into combat zones into the military that is after. in the beginning there were discussions about the programs for families and spouses. there is family readiness programs, hold unit programs that parents are sort of left

out of that close knit community. what was that like for you and how did you -- what did you do to sort of build your own community with other parents? >> guest: there is something the first time one of them went to a dangerous place i felt like i was swimming underwater for a good part of that time partly because i had been there before. i had experienced that as a child. i don't sleep well when i have a child in this a circumstance i wake up in the middle of the night, i will have data trains so i decided very quickly that

instead of responding to that i needed to be proactive to help manage the way that i felt because i had four of them and i knew that i was going to be doing this a lot. so i had a deep have a deep personal faith that helps me a lot but i also learned that it was good for me to be busy doing something different. each deployment i had a project. one time i had as many miles as it would take to where he was deployed and back. >> host: you mean running? >> guest: it would be very loosely described as running. i did complete that the marine corps marathon in 2003 in seven hours four minutes and 50 seconds let's say there were no drinks or oranges and very few people left at the finishing line when i crossed.

but that's one example of the challenge i used to help myself manage the stress of having a child i started when my youngest was playing football and i didn't want to be that parent on the sidelines and i realized if my hands were busy i could keep my mouth shut but now i kind of music as a meditation replacing and then i try to actively praise each of my kids. i planted a bloomwood garden and i know that it sounds kind of silly that i try to take care of myself. i give myself permission to take a 20 minute nap or understand.

it is fair there because the second something happens i hear something on the tv news about afghanistan or in aviation crash. i am on red alert because that might be one of my kids and it has been so as those built and they deplore it again, the backpack is heavier but finding connections with others who get it i can say i had the worst dream. my husband is very calm and he's a great way for me so sometimes

just being able to talk to another mom it's so helpful and that's one of the reasons i wanted to reach out to other parents because we need to be connected because we find support in that and just like my daughter-in-law and my son-in-law are on base they have that unit already there. we don't have that. so how can we build that network and find support because i'm just as worried as the spouse. >> host: when you were young your mom send you to the program when your dad was deployed. what did your parents describe you as a worried personality?

>> guest: i just carry a huge weight of responsibility. my sister was born a week after i was at i was already helping her and my mom and so i think she knew that and at that time i would never admit i was worried about my dad ever. writing this book in some ways has been hard because we don't talk about how hard things are the just suck it up. but i think she knew that we needed a break and we needed to do something that just would give me a a way to define myself as a young adult and there was a great thing. it was a great thing that i did it. >> host: out of the branches that your children serve do any

of them stand out as being accommodating to parents especially during deployment time where there doesn't tend to be a lot of communication but in the pre- deployment workouts and then while they are gone. this panic when my son was a bachelor, he turned my name into the family readiness so i at least got the bulletins but nothing. everything depends on the ones that are married and that's why i tell my fellow moms be nice to your daughter-in-law because i

agree. i'm grateful for whatever they pass along to me. >> host: i pick up on one that isn't under but your husband and you either go visit before hand well before they go on deployment i gather when there is a homecoming you probably wait a few days and then go see afterwards but many don't do that. where do your tips come from and

is it just an experience that you've learned this? >> guest: it's communicating and it was like when my dad came home and i went to get in the car and he about had a heart attack. it changes the family dynamics. it's like a plant that has to be cultivated and being gone really hurts the plans and so when they come home you need to have kind you can just kind of weak root -- free group. my husband was there for almost four years and for two years i was at home and he was coming home every six months.

so i'd have a fresh experience and how that feels and how hard that is. and i was trying to maintain communications and relationships with just my immediate family so i have an appreciation for this time and while i love to come to a homecoming they need to invite me. i will never just go because that is a precious family time and of its nuclear family time and i appreciate the fact that i am -- we are no longer in the nuclear family. and that's hard. that's where mother-in-law jokes come from. but i think especially in my situation it's the best because

i want their families and projects to thrive despite the challenges in the military family. >> host: you decided to go to kabul and to teach. you have a chapter mentioned in the book. >> guest: he had already had to retire and airlines would bring back any of those pilots the first 2800 of them that ended up being (-left-paren at the curb and the only place that they could go is overseas and he ultimately took a job in the afghan airlines and we decided they were rebuilding it to

international standards and he had flown in vietnam so that was like the perfect end to his career. i went to visit him the first summer all the children were launched and i visited him and it was the summer of 2009 and we were taken on a tour in the city my children's friends who were deployed to afghanistan and it was really not a good time but while i was there i felt drawn into the country and the people because the afghan people are some of the most hospitable on the planet and i can remember the day we were in the countryside where they have that terrible attack last year but

there were children on the side of begging and i looked at this guy and there was nothing i could give him and i just thought maybe if i could be a teacher i could come and teach a come of that is to key to change as people become more educated. i discovered there was a school that was to teach english to afghan students so they could go on and go to europe or the united states to go to college and come back to afghanistan and as luck would have it they needed an environmental science teacher, which i happened to be able to teach and i ended up

securing a position. it's meant getting of my tenure teaching position 55-years-old and totally doing something radical but i felt called to do it and so i found myself in a headscarf and my toes covered and off i went to afghanistan. >> host: and you were not able to live with your husband. >> guest: know and as luck would have it he was detained dubai and frankfurt and i know it sounds ridiculous the airport was 8 miles from school on the western part of kabul and it was

dangerous and so many times the security concerns were that i couldn't leave or it might take three hours for him to navigate and he would have a 12 hour layover and so that literally was many times i was over there and he was over here but i couldn't see them and so that was very difficult. i call it my deployment year. i'm not saying i was deployed but for me it felt like a fraction of what it must be like to be deployed to. it would be in a place with no central heat no mail but it was a rough year and there were bad things that happened.

>> host: it was inspired to help children but earlier you said you will so love to have information and in the book part of your afghanistan stent was knowing how do you as a parent if you can't run to afghanistan and to get that information? >> guest: it is a different time and a different place from when i was there a. i think that reading and finding books signing books about that particular region like right now so many of us have sons and daughters going to africa and i don't know that much about

africa and the dynamics. i know a lot more about the middle east. read about some of the history of what has gone beyond so that you can understand. help us figure out the physical geography and the people that talk to me that it surrounded in the hindu kush. try to learn about it but not from the spin you get on the news kind of show. learn about the history. most people in afghanistan on october banned. a lot of people just care about their family and that's true from afghanistan we went to bangladesh same thing.

most moms in the world want their children to have a better life and that's our humanity so that's what i recommend, become an educated. and understand where you're children are. our voice has been in asia. i didn't know much about okinawa and now i know the more because i make myself a student of where they are. >> host: you don't mention in the book that you want to bangladesh. so many stories. what did you do over there? >> guest: my husband transferred in august of 2011 to an airline in bangladesh and so we went there. for me there are things

cultural prescriptions. i couldn't walk out by myself i had to be with a man and even in the security concerns ahead of a flexibility that the flexibility that i could walk the streets of bangladesh and people were like oh my gosh are you kidding me? we met so many wonderful friendly people and we were very sad to leave but our kids were like okay it's time for you to come home. we are having grandkids. but i never thought i would do any of these things. when we had a farm in ohio and we were going to retire to arizona where we met we've are going to be like normal people. >> host: speaking of not knowing what you're going to do

or what's going to happen in your life you send a christmas card one year to be obama's. the total us what tow us what happened after that. >> guest: because i care so much about military family, not just my own children and as i watched that adjustment and i watched our young sons and daughters get married and i know how it feels to be struggling to hold down the homefront i worry about my grandchildren and how they cope with. i started following the joining forces. this is not political. this is bringing together anybody that can do their part whether its businesses, whether it's universities or healthcare,

doing research, we need to be able to support all of these young men and women who have gone to serve, and their families and what a great idea. so the portability of licenses my mom had to getting a teaching license every place we were stationed and have to take arizona and virginia history so i thought this is phenomenal and going to write a thank you note and so i did and that's when we were in bangladesh. i sent my christmas cards and went back got home and had a huge stack of mail the height of a political campaign here was a calligraphy envelope and i thought they are doing some

really fancy campaign literature and i almost didn't open it but i was flabbergasted and i couldn't figure out why i would get an invitation to a state dinner at the white house. so the next morning it was a monday and they called i called the number and i said i have a question and they said yes you are invited. i said does this have anything to do with the christmas card and they said everyone in the white house read your card and i was floored. i called my husband in bangladesh and said you're going to have to come home. he said are you all right and i said no really. so we got him home and of course what do i wear i live in eastern ohio, i went to the mall and tried on every dress they

have a. all of a sudden the day before the event i turned to my husband and said we've been thinking so much about what we are going to wear but who are we going to talk to you don't know these people. we saw the former commandant of the academy when our boys were there. >> host: and that's general john allen. >> guest: then the senator kind of adopted us. we were great. we were prepared to go sit in the back in the corner so we could take pictures of all of these people and that's when we went through the receiving line and mrs. obama said you're sitting with us tonight and who does that you know, we are just

military parents, we have a farm, we were just blown away. we had a lovely night. >> host: did you pick the purple dress? >> guest: i wore a purple dress that night. >> host: explain what that means. >> guest: that is the color of joint forces. when our daughter commissioned to the air force, the commandant at the time was a captain and told me you are the joint forces mom. so i ended up picking a purple dress and later on when i was asked to introduce the first lady, one i already have in my closet that already happened to be purple.

but it's kind of even the bigger idea that when we all need to be a joint force to support our military. it's against the enemies that we know and don't know. so, purple is way up there on my list of favorite color is. >> how did the follow-on invite that you introduced at the convention in 2012 how did that come about? >> guest: i have no idea. i went back to doing my work with parents and i had the opportunity to meet with the head of the forces where they talked about the major initiatives of women veterans and homelessness the other

issue so i was starting to become very involved with learning more about ptsd because now friend of my sons were starting to exhibit symptoms. what do you do when a mom calls and says my son has ptsd and doesn't want anything to do with me which is a first sign of isolation from people that you love. but life was going on. life had gone back to normal it was a once-in-a-lifetime event. it was kind of my cinderella story and i kept on doing what i did, and when i got a call i thought that it was for the ticket because they said if you want to do a tour, and i knew i had a son coming up for the reunion so i asked if i could get ticket so that's what i thought that it was about.

when they ultimately asks me to do that the first thing that happened is my son said they could have oprah. they could have anybody they wanted. and it was obviously overwhelming. who does that? but i wanted to be able to put a personal story with the extended military family community and for people to think about the fact that we are out here whether we are moms or wives or husbands or children we sacrifice every day and so i decided to say yes and that was a whole other experience.

i just couldn't help but wonder what my dad would be saying watching from having. i hope i'm doing okay. >> host: you talked about them starting to get calls and questions. how have you approached that and what have you done to sort of learn about those topics and to be a source of advice for others and how prevalent do you see the issue? >> guest: there were things that happened that were very difficult and i watched the staff that i worked with many of whom are suffering in ptsd and one of the things i learned from joining forces is that sometimes it can be up to seven years after a traumatic event.

i was on the phone with the flight attendants telling them what to do because they were barricaded in their room and she was coordinating the rescue. it sounds like a movie. i feel like it's not even my wife sometimes but for them to feel safe to come out and so we went through a traumatic event where you talk through so that triggered my interest in the beginning. more and more were starting to be concerned as my children are getting concerned about classmates were people that they know so i started to research and learn more. i'm very fascinated about the course on science and education

it is constantly rewiring and changing and so my counsel to parents would support such organizations especially anybody about suicide and for grief counseling and now i had the opportunity to go to the university of texas where they are doing a lot of research and my big push is that we need as much funding as we can to get more. this is our last frontier and the more that we understand not only can we help those suffering from mental health and learning problems it is just an enormous opportunity almost like going to the moon but i think that so much of what they are doing now is reacting to behaviors and we

need to focus on a holistic approach of what can we do to help find the area that has been damaged and fix it so i am hoping that we can see great strides in that. >> host: speaking of injuries, wounded warriors there is a whole subset of parents and spouses and friends but for some higher status than half their 18-year-old child who's come back and they are going to be caregivers for a long time. have you spoken with them and what parents are there available for them? >> guest: there co. there are 25 other military voices and one of them is a mother matter that is caring for her tbi. her son that has tbi quit her

job and moved to washington d.c. so when he was in bethesda and now what's next. and we have about a million caregivers and if only a third of those are parents and many of them are coming from areas where they haven't had the benefit of the military background to understand the services that are available to them and their whole lives have changed because they are now taking care of these tiers of wounded children and so they have a caregivers program so that's where i appoint people to get connected to find other kids. we have this terrible epidemic of caregivers and if you don't

have someone in your community that is a caregiver and you needed to be showing up at their door saying what can i do to help you because this is a lifelong role that they are going to have and so that's another thing really close to my heart as you know. we need to be helping them supporting them. there is an association and you talk a little bit about the moms and mothers and those that lost a son and daughter would you

like to sort of touch a little bit on that? >> guest: i got to know her and discovered that lots of moms have angst. it's the first challenge that your child is going through without you and to communicate with her she has an older son that she lost in iraq and the younger son was fired five at the time and the process of her coming to grips with the idea that she had a second son that wanted to serve and she tells the story it's very meaningful and now she's supportive of him

but it was a difficult journey so i'm very proud of her for being willing to talk her story. >> host: you're coming to a close. is there anything else you would like to add to the book and where is it available and who do you hope? >> guest: is available online and on the online major retailers and barnes and noble and it's available. target has it online and it's available in roscoe cost co. and exchanges and it is available in barnes and noble and fort hood and saturday during the signing. ..